A Dating Nightmare
by ThePandoricaWillOpen
Summary: Monique has a bad habit... a habit that ends with the police picking up a dead body in her home. Harry can't help but be protective of Monique, she is a good girl gone bad and needs help. Only Harry can help her now. Drabbles from "The Avenger" (S4:E2).
1. Out on the town

**Title: **A Dating Nightmare

**Episode: **"The Avenger" (S4:E2)

**Rating: **K+ for violence

**Format: **Drabbles - 10 drabbles (plus prologue and epilogue) retelling the episode.

**Description: **Monique has a bad habit... a habit that ends with the police picking up a dead body in her home. Harry can't help but be protective of Monique, she is a good girl gone bad and needs help. Only Harry can help her now.

**A/N: **For sallyferrell

* * *

(Prologue)

Monique Travis is out on the town … and she is bored. The man to her side didn't even bother to get her name when he sat down on her left, a drink for her already in his hand. His name was Phil, she'd listened that much. He had been talking about cars for a while now, never taking a breath, boring her to death. She sat there, smoking a cigarette and looking at the pitiful club through the mirror behind the bar. People danced behind them, their hips gyrating and grinding close to each other in an almost illegal way. It had been a long time since she had been out on the town… since Harry appeared, she figured.

Harry Ashford had found her in a club back in her former home in San Francisco. At the time, Monique had found a sort of attraction to him. He liked things a certain way, like her father did, he liked punctuality and formality. He was a gentleman and an intelligent man. He'd seen right through her guise at the bar where they'd met and had seen right into her soul.

They spent hours talking about nothing and yet it felt like everything. He told her things about herself she didn't even know. He was incredibly deep and understanding and yet tough. She saw judgment in those dark eyes and hate. But not towards Monique herself, no, it was more twisted than that. He blamed her for her actions, hated her flirting ways and even, on their first night, accused her of trying to bed him. She admitted it; she had wanted something from him. And his response had startled her. He wanted her to give it all up.

Harry became her life soon after.

Phil continues to talk about the multitude of cars and their parts as she exhales. He blinks; just now realising she was bored. Monique takes a sip from her drink and turns to him, waiting.

He chuckles.

"So… cars? How fun," she says dryly.

The man smiles thinly and asks, "yes cars, what do you do for fun? What do you like?"

"Organic foods," she replies looking back to the mirror. For a second she thought she saw a pair of eyes looking at her from the crowd. A pair of dark, angry eyes… but they were gone once she blinked.

"Organic foods?" Phil asks incredulously. "Your body is your temple and all that, huh?"

"Something like that."

"Hey listen," he says after a pause. "Do you wanna go someplace else? My place is a bit far, yours?"

"Well, mine is a few-"

"Great!" he grabs her hand and pulled her towards the door. "Yours it is."


	2. Can't argue with machines

(1)

Huggy looks at his two favourite detectives as they play pool, balancing his thin body on one of the pool cues. He smirks as Starsky's shot misses and watches Hutch's face light up at his victory. He's always found it funny how one game of pool can bring the two detectives to a confrontation. Today the joke was on Starsky who, according to Hutch, was at a double – no, triple – zero according to his handheld astrological biorhythm calculator. Huggy smiles. He'd been the one who had given Hutch the device.

Starsky turns to him for help.

"Given how the game turned out, Starsky, maybe the machine is right," he says in his best serious voice.

Starsky stares at him, unbelieving and then slams a hand on the bill that they had bet on. Hutch gets to it as well, slamming his pale hand on the other half. Starsky tried to take the bill but his partners hand is too heavy and ends up ripping the bill in half.

Huggy's best moment for the night: Starsky looking crestfallen whilst Hutch looked like he'd just won the lottery.


	3. Good Girl

(2)

Harry is back.

He'd gotten into her home whilst she was out and now wouldn't leave. Phil is in the bedroom getting dressed while Monique went to the kitchen to make some tea when she hears Harry's calls. Monique searches every nook and cranny of her kitchen and nearby bathroom but found nothing. She turns back to the stove thinking it was all in her imagination but then she hears him again. The quick taps on the window revealed where he is but when she checks, he is gone.

It escaped her how he could move so fast.

"Monique…" he coos, his breathe almost tangible. "Monique… Why are you doing this, Monique?"

"H-harry!" She cries out, terrified at how close his voice is. "Go away, Harry, please!"

For a brief moment Harry is silent. Monique lets out a sigh, slumping against her kitchen counter in relief. But that relief is short lived. His loud breathing - inhales and exhales of his lungs - scare her back into alert.

She straightens, her knuckles whitening from the hold she has on her flimsy nightgown. She turns, the cold metallic countertop biting at her back.

She sees him and she is scared. She doesn't want this, doesn't want him, but he would go away and there is nothing she can do about it.

"Good girl," Harry hisses, his voice vibrates inside her skull.

Monique blacked out.


	4. Let's hear it for Sherlock Holmes

(3)

Hutch looks around the apartment, his eyes searching for any clues that can lead them to the killer. The front room, where the body lays covered by a white sheet, is crowded with policemen, their indistinct chatter making it hard to think. He tries to remember a time when a scene of a crime was a grim occasion and not treated as a spectacle. There was laughter coming from a pair of cops by the door, their idle chatter concentrating on their individual plans for the weekend instead of watching the crowd that had gathered in front of them, trying to get a look at the crime scene inside the apartment.

With a roll of his eyes, Hutch heads to the small bathroom, pulling the shower curtain to the side. The bathroom was bare like a hospital room with its white and undecorated walls. The perp had to have been hiding somewhere, he had reasoned earlier that night; he couldn't have just popped out of thin air. According to the witness, Monique Travis, if one could call hiding in the kitchen whilst a man was being killed in the other room witnessing something, she had heard and seen nothing until walking back to the living room and finding her date on their makeshift bed covered in blood.

Rubbing his eyes, trying to shoo away the sleep he felt bidding its time somewhere inside of him, Hutch walks to the kitchen. The window was open half way, enough for a man to be able to make his way inside the apartment and leave without being detected. The drop, he notices as he pocked his head out the window, wasn't that far down. Even if the perp had entered via the open window, the Miss Travis had been in the kitchen at the time of the murder, further supporting his original hypothesis of the perp being already inside when the couple had arrived. It was either that or she had _let_ the killer in.

"Pending a trip to my cosy home in the coroner's office, I'd say cause of death was multiple stab wounds," the attending coroner was telling Starsky as Hutch exited the kitchen and walked into the scene of the crime, the living room. The detective's nod to one another, Hutch shakes his head to indicate that he had found nothing. "I tried counting 'em but I ran out of fingers."

"Type of weapon?" Starsky asks as Hutch crouches down to examine the body. "You can't just tell me death by stabs. I've got eyes too, you know?"

"A sharp instrument," the coroner replied dryly.

"C'mon, Russ, give me something," Starsky insisted.

"A sharp _bladed_ instrument," Russ corrected with a smirk.

Hutch can practically hear Starsky rolling his eyes at the man. He looks at the body as the conversation continues. Multiple stab wounds was not enough to describe what had happened to the man lying on the bed, his back practically sliced open.

"As you can see it was larger than a penknife and smaller than a sword," Russ quips.

"The assailant was smaller than the victim," Hutch calls out, standing up. Russ raises an eyebrow, his gaze turning to the blond detective. Starsky badly conceals a smirk knowing what was to come. Hutch had his 'smartass' face on and it was, for once, not directed at him. "Probably right handed and crazy as hell."

"I can't confirm any of that until I get him on the slab," Russ says. "Are you moonlighting for the coroner's office?"

"Oh, no, no, no," Hutch exclaims, not missing the small chuckle that erupted from his partners lips. "My contract wouldn't allow that."

"You keep raining on the witch doctor's parade he's gonna turn you into a frog," Starsky jibs, taking the notepad Russ shoves his way and signing it.

"It's no big deal," Hutch declares. "Wounds are on the left side meaning attacker is left handed. Angle of entry is pretty much straight on." He pauses, giving Russ a levelled look. "Now, if the victim was smaller than the assailant the knife wounds would be in a downward angle, wouldn't they?"

"Let's hear it for Sherlock Holmes," Starsky says passing back the pad to Russ before he could reply. "How about we leave this to the professionals, eh partner?"

"Lead on, Watson," Hutch chuckles following Starsky to where the victim was, sitting on her couch, hands shaking in her lap.


	5. Something isn't right

(4)

Starsky and Hutch walk over to Monique, stepping to the side as to not to crowd her. She had been through enough without having two strangers get in her personal space. The attack had left the woman in a state of panic, her voice reflected none of that however, as they began to question her. Her eyes never once left the floor, her voice was as calm as if she was having a conversation with friends. It struck Hutch as strange but he didn't voice his concern. Nor did he point out that, at the arrival of the responding officers, she had told them she'd been in the kitchen making tea and not in the bathroom as she now told them. Starsky had spoken to her earlier while Hutch spoke with the responding cops and helped get the area secure.

Monique Travis lived alone in a first floor apartment of a little complex hidden behind a row of large branching trees. Not only was her home an ideal place to break into but it made escaping through any window or even the front door possible. Yet another detail that changed in her story. Rather than not having seen the perp at all, entering the crime scene with coffee and finding her date already on the verge of death, she now claimed to have seen the killer going out the front door.

"Can you describe him?" Hutch asks, sharing a look with Starsky that said _something is off, partner_.

"Yeah," Monique replies. "Um, dark hair. About your age, glasses." She pauses, blinking rapidly for a moment before adding, "Harry's eyes are strange, cold."

The detectives share a look.

"Harry?" Starsky asks, confused. "Who's Harry?"

"Harry Ashford," Monique says right away. Her gaze lifts from her hands to look out in front of her, not really looking at anything. "He's done it again..."

Starsky turns to Hutch, who asks, "Done what again?"

She proceeds to tell them of how she and Harry met, of their dark and tenuous relationship back in San Francisco. Her voice doesn't falter, it's like she's told this tale many times. She tells them of the first time Harry went after one of her fates. Though her words say otherwise, she is emotionless in her speech. Hutch can't help but wonder why this woman sounded so desensitised to this type of violence, almost as if she's accepted that Harry is a part of her life and will continue to kill no matter what.

"They arrest him?"

"No, he, um, disappeared after that night." Monique closed her eyes, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "You see, I don't think his name is really Harry Ashford. The police in San Francisco couldn't find a record of him. I haven't seen him since that night. I moved to get away just in case, to forget it ever happened but now..." She reaches out for her purse behind the two detectives on the desk they lean on, opening it and handing them a slip of paper. "About a week ago, I found this in a book I've been reading. I've had the book since before I moved so I'm not sure if he – he put the note then or if he found me and did it now. I don't..."

"What does it mean?" Starsky asks as he and Hutch look at the note. "You have to stop?"

"He's talking about the other men," Monique replies promptly. "He formed an attachment to me and gets jealous when other men are around."

"How do you know he gets jealous?" Hutch questions, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Starsky looks confused too, probably picking up on the same thing he had. "I thought you said you haven't seen or talked to him since that night."

"I haven't," she quickly amended. "I just – I, um, don't know. I feel like he hates me ... like wants me to himself. The other men, he only kills them if I've taken them back to my place."

"How many? Men, I mean. How many men has he gone after?"

"Gone after because of me? I don't know. They never call me back or answer when I call so... maybe he got them all."


	6. Hotel Search

(5)

"This file is a joke," Starsky exclaims throwing said file in Hutch's desk, almost spilling his coffee cup in the process. "Either this guy is a criminal mastermind with powers to turn invisible or..."

"Or?" Hutch asks opening the file and looking at it himself.

"I don't know," Starsky says sitting down behind his desk. He reaches out to take Hutch's cup of coffee, taking a small sip before retuning it to Hutch's table. "That's all I've got."

"This is... this is it?"

"Partner, that there is a joke is what that is."

"Nothing but a sketch and Monique's description." Hutch flips a page, trying to make sense of the nothingness that the page contained. Apart from the description and sketch provided by Monique, the only other detail in the file was "POSSIBLY ARMED AND DANGEROUS" written in big block letters in one of the officer reports which were no more than a paragraph long each. Harry, as far as Hutch could tell, was practically a ghost. "Maybe Dobey forgot some pages when he gave you the report?"

"Nope, I got it straight from the record requisition lady herself. I gotta tell ya," Starsky confessed, "She gave me a scare with that big hair of hers. Next time you go and get the file, ey?"

"Sure thing, partner," Hutch drawls, "as soon as you start typing up your own reports without having them read like some television script." He stands, chugging the remaining coffee. "Let's go talk to our favourite captain. Maybe he has some insight we've missed."

"Insight to the vending machine, maybe," Starsky murmurs also getting up.

* * *

Inside Captain Dobey's office, the detectives take a seat in the two chairs in front of the man's overcrowded desk. Hutch looks down at the file in his hands, opening it and giving it a once over but getting nothing but the same gaps and emptiness pop out at him.

"Did you read the San Francisco file on Harry Ashford?" The captain asks putting down a file he was reading. "Any leads?"

"What's to read, Captain?" Hutch asks standing up and walking to the window.

"There is no photo. No rap sheet," Starsky add. "Just a composite drawing which matches the description the Travis girl gave us this morning."

"Where is she now?"

"Across town with her sister," Hutch answers from his place by the window.

"She know anything?"

"Nothing," Starsky says from his seat. "

"Delaney get any prints of the note?"

"Not a thing. Looks like a piece of hotel stationary with the heading bit torn off. The last four digits of a zip code are the only thing left from it.

"Points to skid row," Starsky points out. "Strictly skid row has hundreds of hotels."

"Supposed you get down to 'strictly' skid row and find this guy before he strikes again?"

"Let's get to countin'," Hutch mumbles. "We've got a long day ahead of us, partner."

"Thanks for the info, Cap," Starsky says as he and Hutch leave the office.

* * *

One hour and fifteen hotels later, Starsky and Hutch walk into _The Shinning Rose_. It looked like every other hotel they had visited, stingy and run down with an odd mouldy smell to it. Starsky let Hutch take the lead, following him into the front room where two drunkards were arm wrestling. Starsky watched on as they two continued their stalemate, one of the men taking a large sip of something from a large green bottle.

"Oh no," the hotel clerk exclaims with false horror. "My Rolls-Royce parked at an expired meter?"

"Be nice," Starsky calls out beside Hutch. "It's been a long day and this sarcasm isn't helping."

"Ever seen this guy?" Hutch asks pushing the sketch of Harry towards the clerk.

"No."

"Don't be bashful," Starsky reprimanded. "Take a look."

The clerk did, his eyes barely looking at the picture before repeating, "No. Never seen him."

"Names Harry Ashford," Hutch adds.

"Never heard of him."

"Well, would you mind, um... ?" Hutch begins, following Starsky's line of sight to the men still arm wrestling. "Would you mind checking your registration files?" The two detectives watched the arm wrestlers as the clerk looked through his file system. "Ashford. Harry."

"Yeah, yeah," the clerk croaks flipping through sheets. He falters and says, "Huh... room 211."

The detectives turn halfway, splitting their attention to the clerk and his discovery and the two men grunting nearby, hands red from the strain of their battle.

"Thought you said you never seen him?" Starsky asks taking the paper the clerk had on Harry.

"I've had the job for a few days," the clerk admits. "He hasn't been around whilst I've been here."

"Rent's a week overdue," Hutch points out looking over Starsky's shoulder at the slip.

"He hasn't been in. I swear." The clerk turns, reaching for the room key. "Here, you can check for yourself. Here."

With one last look at the arm wrestling men, the detectives head up the stairs to room 211.

* * *

The room is not disappointing, at least not in the looks department. With discoloured yellow wall paper just barely sticking to the walls, the mouldy smell that seemed to be a trait in hotels in skid row and dark blue – almost black – carpet, the room was just about what Starsky expected from a place like this. Criminals weren't one for luxury, at least not murders. The only thing on their mind after the high of a kill wore off was survival. If Harry was as dangerous as Monique implied him to be, this was the perfect place for a man like him.

The empty room is not as empty as it first looked. By the sink on the wall was a mirror, lipstick writing on the glass, which Hutch noticed right away. The writing looked nothing like the writing from the note, if anything this writing was almost womanly. Letters had been carefully written on the glass with arrows pointing to various pictures of Monique that had be taped to the frame of the mirror.

The detectives look at one another, not for the first time, and wonder that the hell was this guy and what was it about this girl that attracted this lunatic.


	7. Roger

(6)

Bobbie had begged her sister not to go out. She'd pleaded with her, reminded her of the danger that she, and the men around her, would be in if Harry was still following her. But Monique had always been the rebellious one. When Bobbie wasn't looking, her sister had sneaked out of the house and left her with two servings of food on the table.

When Monique had called earlier in the day, asking for a place to stay, Bobbie had said no. It wasn't until Monique arrived at her doorstep, eyes red from having been crying and with a police escort at her side, that Bobbie let her inside, holding her close in an embrace meant to comfort her. It didn't. The moment the police officer left, Monique stepped out of Bobbie's embrace, running her hand through her dark hair, and seemingly turned into another person. Bobbie had seen this before; it was why she had said no in the first place. She might be her sister but Bobbie couldn't comprehend Monique.

One moment she was sobbing, tears running down her face and body shaking with fear and the next she was as cool and relaxed as if she'd just come back from grocery shopping.

When the cops arrive, three hours after Monique left, Bobbie shakes her head and tells them everything they want to know.

"She's probably somewhere with a lot of men," Bobbie scoffs. "She frequents places like that."

"Anywhere more specific?" the dark haired detective asks. "Did she mention a certain place she likes to go to more?"

"I don't know... those places where people drink and dance," she responses, "I don't know... Wait! She left something on her night table..." Bobbie hurries out of the room, going to the spare bedroom that Monique occupied. "A book of matches," she proclaims as she re-enters the living room. "I think it's from one of those places. Here. I hope it helps."

* * *

_The Cellar_ was Monique's favourite hangout. The music, although a bit too loud sometimes, was the perfect beat to dance to especially after a day such as the day she was having. Being on the dance floor, eyes closed and letting her body move whichever way it wanted, was nothing but bliss. The sheer adrenaline that rushed through her body felt wonderful. The feel of someone's hands on her waist, moving her hips in time with the music and the rhythm of their hearts as they beat together was even better.

Roger, the man she was currently dancing closely with, had moves like a pro. His hands at her hips, their bodies swaying with the beat of the music above, and lips at her ear, they were in perfect sync. Monique let her loll back onto his shoulder, a small sigh escaping through her lips, as Roger began to place little kisses along her exposed neck. His moustache tickled her, making her giggle every once in a while.

When the song ended, Roger leads her back to the bar motioning to the bartender for two beers. Monique doesn't say anything, let's herself free be pulled along. _Roger seems nice_, she thinks, _maybe this time Harry will see that I've found the right man. Maybe he'll be safe. _But even as she thinks these words, she feels Harry watching her. Dark, cold eyes search hers out; she feels his disapproval in the air.

"The tape was running about ten minutes behind the action on the floor," Roger was telling her, his voice enthusiastic. "Twenty-six million shares..."

She stops listening, watching Roger's lips move and his eyes widen as he continues his tale but not taking in anything he is saying. Her body sways with the beat of the overhead music, her fingers tapping at the side of the bottle in her hand.

"You always talk so much?" She teases with a smile, stopping him half way through a thought.

"Not when there is something better to do," he replies, returning her smile. "Do you have something in mind?"

"Nothing," she answers, taking a sip of her beer.

"Well?"

"Well what?" Monique looks down at her hands, she knows what's coming, and she can practically hear the words form in the man's head.

"Well... are we just gonna hang out and make small talk or are we gonna..."

"What?" she asks wanting to hear him say the words, wanting to hear the need and want in his voice. "What are you suggesting?"

* * *

They go to her place, thankfully all the police tape has been taken down already, and as they head up to her apartment, she feels good about this. Harry hasn't appeared so far, only that brief feel as of someone was watching her, which had long since gone, and Roger _seemed_ very nice.

_Unlike the last man... maybe Roger will stay the whole night and maybe he'll call tomorrow and we'll go out dancing and have dinner. Maybe I'll-_

"Nice place you've got here," Roger comments. "You live here alone?"

She nods.

Things with Roger did not go as planned, however. Soon after reaching the bedroom, all he wants to do is get physical. Monique lets him, letting her body go pliant under his rough touch. He grips her by the hair, pulling some strands from her scalp and making her wince. It doesn't stop his movements inside of her; in fact he seems to take pleasure in her sounds of pain. He continues to pull her hair before his hands move down to her throat, thick fingers wrap themselves around her as his hips keep thrusting inside of her, the sound of skin to skin resonate in the air along with his shallow breathing and her whimpers. She doesn't want this anymore.

When his fingers begin to squeeze down on her throat, leaving her gasping for air, Monique snaps. She pushes him with all the strength she can possibly gather, her hands claw at his fingers until they let go. His eyes, which had been previously closed, open wide with pain as she digs the heel of her foot into his back.

"What the hell, lady?" he exclaims pulling away from her. She is left free from his weight on top of her and takes the chance to move away from him. In the furthest corner of the bed, she pulls her legs close to her and rocks back and forth. Roger stands up, grabbing the bed sheet to cover himself. "The hell is wrong with you?"

"I-I don't that," Monique croaks out, still feeling his fingers around her throat. "I don't go for that."

"You looked like you did," Roger barks, reaching down to grab his pants. He begins to dress, not sparing a glance at Monique. "Girls like you like things like that."

"Just because you picked me up in a bar – " she starts to protest.

"I picked _you_ up?" Roger interrupts, shaking his head. "What do you want? An engagement ring?"

"I don't want you to think-"

"Look, you're terrific."

"Then show me some respect," she yells getting off the bed. She grabs her bathroom, wrapping it around herself twice. "I deserve at least that, don't I?"

"Listen, uh, uh..." he trails off, looking at her for help.

"Monique," she snaps. "It's Monique, Roger."

He continues to change. She looks around, eyes wide. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, I – I just thought I'd heard something." She looked towards the kitchen and sees Harry. He calls to her, his dark shadow luring her in. She turns to Roger and says, "I'll make you some coffee whilst you finish changing."

"Thanks," Roger replies, a bit confused at the change of mood. He shook his head and continued dressing as Monique stood up, leaving him in the living room. "Black, no sugar," he called out as she enters the kitchen.

For a second she thinks it was all in her imagination, just a shadow or a car passing by but then she hears it. She closes her eyes, trying to will him away but his voice continues, permeating through everything until it invades her mind, his voice echoing between her ears. Her eyes snap open, glancing around the room to locate him. Maybe she can convince him to go away... maybe he won't come out this time.

_Monique... _Harry calls out seductively. _Monique... _

"Harry? Not again, please!" She begs, looking around the kitchen trying to spot him. "Please, no more!"

_You've been a bad girl, Monique..._

"Harry, no, I'm sorry!" she apologises, going towards the sound of his voice. She leans over the kitchen sink in order to look out the window, sure that his voice is coming from outside. "I'll be good, just please go away."

_You shouldn't like, Monique!_

"No more, please!"

_LET ME IN! _Harry bellows, his voice getting closer and louder. She wonders briefly if Roger, being only a room away, can't hear him yell. He doesn't care, she reasons as Harry yells, _LET. ME. IN. MONIQUE!_

She staggers away from the kitchen counter, turning and walking mechanically out of the kitchen. His voice, his terrible, mean voice echoed in her mind, yelling at her with every step she took. He named all her past dalliances, telling her about each and every one of her sins, promised her redemption if she would just let him in.

_Good girl... let me in and everything will be just fine._

Monique reaches for the doorknob, her hand tightens around it. She takes a deep breath, maybe Harry is right, and maybe everything _will_ be okay after this time. She opens the door, waiting until her eyes adjust to the darkness to walk inside. Harry is there, waiting for her with a look of disdain on his dark, shadowy face.

"Harry, please. I'll never do it again, I promise. I'll get rid of him, okay? I'll make him leave."

_You're trash, Monique. He doesn't respect you._

Monique looks away; Harry's angry gaze is too much. It's true, she knows it, and Harry knows it.

_You're defiled. Impure, Monique._

_Take off that robe_, Harry orders. _Take it off!_

"No," she managed to choke out. "I don't want to!"

_Do it!_

Monique did.


	8. Dobey takes charge

(7)

They arrive late to the crime scene. Evidence has been collected, statements have been taken, the body has been examined and is ready to be taken to the morgue and all there is left to do is question the witness. As the lead detectives on this particularly strange case, the crime lab and coroner are waiting for them to be dismissed and begin their work.

The victim is one Roger Elis, a businessman from downtown Bay City with no family or close friends to speak off. He is a ladies man who frequented places like _The Cellar_ on the weekends and still managed to hold a conference call to Hong Kong in the middle of the night without breaking a sweat. Like the last victim, multiple stab wounds to his chest, back and neck killed him. His throat was practically sliced open, and, unlike the last victim, he had been clothed, which only made the attack even more brutal.

The four layers of clothing - an undershirt, dress shirt, vest and jacket - has made it harder on the killer to get a "good, bloody stab" as the coroner told Hutch when he crouches down to examine the body. He finds himself flinching as the man adds that, due to the clothing, the victim most likely bled to death slowly.

"If he'd gotten to the hospital maybe, just _maybe_, they could have saved him," the coroner comments handing Hutch clipboard with papers to sign as the detective stands. "A good doctor might have been able to stitch him up and given him a transfusion."

"How long," Hutch asks signing the papers. "How long did it take him to bleed out?"

"Well… judging from the stab wounds I've been able to count, I would say anywhere between five and twenty minutes. Though his chest is pretty damaged, the killer might have punctured his heart and killed him instantly. Or he might have hit another major organ and he bled internally as well as externally." He motioned for his lab assistants to lift the body from its position on the bed to the gurney. "As I understand it, there is a witness. I wonder where she was while this guy was being attacked and then dying on her bed."

"Yeah," Hutch agreed. "I do too."

"I'll have a report ready in a few hours," the coroner says. "I'll contact you if I find anything."

Hutch nodded, stepping aside to let the man and his assistants go. "I appreciate it."

* * *

Monique is taken down to the police station. The circumstance for this murder, the second one to happen around her, meant she was either a target or the murderer. Whichever it was, the police station would be the safest both for her and men she interacted with.

Starsky and Hutch question her separately, trying to find the holes in her story, the holes that seemed to solidify the longer they questioned her. Eventually, with nothing more to do but wait for evidence check and an autopsy report, they have to let Monique go.

"I don't know what else I can tell you," she says as they go down the stairs to the front desk. "I've been over it three times now and that's all I know."

"You can tell us why you left your sister's house," Hutch asks.

"Well, I stopped at a bar to get a drink 'cuz I wanted to talk to someone," Monique says. "A guy was murdered in my house, my sister didn't want to talk about it so ... I went out."

"To a bar? To talk to someone about a murder?" Starsky asks giving Hutch a look. "That's a hell of a conversation starter."

"I wanted to forget this whole trip and there is this attractive guy. We got to talking and well..."

"Weren't you afraid of going home?" Starsky asks as they stop by the front desk, Minnie gives them a raised eyebrow but otherwise ignores their conversation. "The murder did just happen a day or two ago."

"A – a little, yeah, but I didn't think Harry would do anything."

"How about this time you go to your sister's place, an officer will get you there, and you stay there. Murderers don't operate on logic. They strike when you least expect it," Hutch warned Monique, hoping that this time she did as they asked of her.

"Minnie, here, will take care of your ride," Starsky says giving Minnie behind the counter a wide smile. "She's the sweetest most wonderful woman e-"

"Can it, Starsky," Minnie interrupted. "I'll take care of her."

"See?" Starsky asks to no one in particular. "A cupcake!"

* * *

The detectives leave Monique with Minnie after signing some paperwork that, according to Minnie, is weeks old. As they walk to their squad room, they bounced ideas off each other. Neither detective fully comprehends what Harry's deal is with Monique, and they knew, given the offhanded way she has agreed to stay at home, that Monique would be picking another guy up sooner or later and there would be yet another body to her name.

They couldn't let that happen but with no leads, no evidence from either crime scene and no witness other than Monique, who the they agreed is unreliable, they had next to nothing. The only way they were going to catch Harry was while he was committing the act otherwise he would just slip into the night while Monique was in the other room, unaware that yet another murder had occurred just a few feet away.

"You think she's holding something back?" Starsky asks, pushing the doors open and letting his partner enter first. "Her story does seem to change every time we talk to her."

"She's been through a lot," Hutch reasoned half-heartedly. "We can post a uni at her sister's place to watch her?"

"Yeah, mayb-" Starsky is interrupted by his phone ringing. He picked it up, pointing to the coffee machine with his pinkie finger, and answered. "Starsky... Right away, Captain."

* * *

Captain Dobey's office is lit with natural sunlight coming from the windows behind his desk. The shades, usually drawn midway, are open allowing the bleak office to look a bit less like a doctor's office and more like the office of a veteran cop. The light does not match the man's attitude however. He had three of his bosses up the chain of command on his ass all because his two best detectives couldn't find a stalker-turned-killer. Well at least he isn't the only one who has to deal with this.

He picks up the phone on his desk, reaching behind him to the desk while remaining hunched over a file on his lap, his body towards the window. Looking back for a moment to dial the correct extension, even though he could just holler at them since there_ were_ in the other room, he dialled the numbers and pressed the receiver to his ear. Starsky answered.

"My office. Now." Captain Dobey doesn't wait for a reply, slamming the receiver back on the phone. The men enter the entered his office a few moments later, shutting the door behind them. The moment they are inside the room, he is on their case. "What's going on here? We've got two murder in three night and no leads."

The two detectives shake their heads, looking at Captain Dobey like two lost puppies in a field. The older man sighs. Sometimes all they need is a little push, he thinks. Dobey looked at the file on his desk, an idea forming in his mind.

"Any ongoing theories?" He asks the men. They look at one another; one of those silent conversations passes between them. It was almost as if they were an old married couple, able to look at one another and know what the other was thinking without the need of words. They made the perfect duo.

Hutch rubs the back of his neck, his eyes turning to Dobey, as he answers, "The last victim, Roger, the M.E said he bled to death."

"So?"

"So," Starsky says, "why didn't Monique help him? It took five to twenty minutes for him to die and she was one room away. Something ain't right here."

"Not only that," Hutch adds, "but her alibi, shady as it already is, keeps changing. The first crime, she told the responding officers she was making tea in the kitchen."

"So?"

"So, she told _us_ she was in the bathroom during the attack," Starsky finished with a nod, satisfied with what had been said.

"Is that all?" Dobey asked looking at the two detectives with a cocked eyebrow. "A traumatized witness accidentally forgetting where she was while a man was being murdered in her bed?"

Starsky shrugged, "that's all we've got, cap'n."

"Harry isn't in the system. His description and sketch was handed out to patrolmen and we have someone keeping an eye on her," Hutch provides.

"You know, to make sure she doesn't run off again," Starsky finishes.

"Well, how about you start doing some real detective work," Dobey told his two best detectives. "One of you two will go with her to these clubs."

"You wanna use her as bait?" Starsky asked a bit shocked.

"Got any other ideas you wanna share?" The detectives shake their heads. They even do that in sync, Dobey noted. "We don't want another dead civilian on our hands. If this Ashford guy is killing her dates, then what better way to catch him than-"

"Having him attack one of us?" Starsky croaks. He shakes his head, blinking as he thinks over the idea. "I don't know, cap."

"Okay," Hutch says softly. The two men turn to the blond and he repeats, "Okay."

"Watcha mean 'okay'?" Starsky asks, turning to face his partner fully. "You heard what he said right?" Hutch nods. Once again a silent conversation passes between them. Captain Dobey waits, watching as the two men looked at one another, their facial features changing rapidly. It was like a staring contest, over before Dobey could even blink. "Okay."

Dobey blinks, gathering his wits a moment later and asking, "Who's it gonna be then?"

Both men reply, "me."

Dobey rolls his eyes, deciding to choose instead having another staring contest. "Starsky stays by the girl while you, yes you, Hutchinson, scout out the area." Dobey waved his hand in a shooing motion, turning his chair so his back was to them without another glance at the men. "Now get out."


End file.
